4 Reasons Your Home Business Needs A Virtual Receptionist

Published on: 08 June 2021 Last Updated on: 21 December 2024

If you’re the owner of a home business, you may often wonder if manning the phones while trying to grow your company is a good idea. Interestingly, using the phone can be one of the toughest issues involved with running a home business.

While some home business owners would prefer to try and do it all themselves, there are many benefits to hiring a virtual receptionist.

Being Your Own Receptionist is Tough

Family phone needs, environmental noise, and simply not hearing the phone make it a challenge when you work from home.

Being your own receptionist means you’re saddled with daily responsibilities and tasks that take up a great deal of time. This is why it’s important to delegate receptionist duties to a qualified person.

Here are the top four benefits of using virtual assistants for your home and business.

1. Enjoy Greater Savings :

The cost of a virtual receptionist is well worth the investment for home business owners. You don’t have to hire a person to sit in your home all day doing admin and answering the phone. What’s more, a virtual receptionist can manage a range of tasks, including:

Calendar management
Call handling
Message taking
Basic customer service
Scheduling appointments
Delivering messages whichever way you prefer
Send voicemails to your email
Record calls for quality assurance
Accept and also track collect calls if necessary

2. Make Your Home Business Look Even More Professional :

The CEO of any company shouldn’t really be answering the phone. It’s not professional, and it shows that either you’re not particularly busy or that there might be a problem like your entire staff has quit, and you need to manage the phones yourself. It’s just a poor impression of your business.

When you work with a virtual receptionist for your home business, you can give your company a much more professional look by letting callers, customers, and prospects believe you have a properly trained in-house receptionist taking care of the calls. A virtual receptionist is always available to answer the phone to your specific requirements, which also means your company is sure to make an excellent first impression on callers.

3. Provide Quality Customer Service :

Virtual receptionists have expert customer service training. So, they have the necessary skills and experience to fulfill the role to the highest of standards. Each and every phone call to your home business will be handled in a professional manner to ensure your customers are always happy with your service.

4. Never Miss Out on a Call :

While running your home business is extremely satisfying, it can also be stressful. A virtual receptionist can offer the support needed to ensure you never miss a work-related call and that your business is available at all times.

Does Your Home Business Really Need a Virtual Receptionist?

Many home businesses certainly need the assistance of a virtual receptionist. The drawbacks and hardships of trying to be your own receptionist from home tend to outnumber the benefits of hiring a virtual receptionist.

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Benefits Of Hiring A Professional Bookkeeper

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Six Steps to a Successful Office Move

There are several steps to take when moving your office from one location to another. Whether you are downsizing or expanding, moving your business requires a lot of planning and the ability to minimize interruptions to productivity, employee projects, and cash flow. Depending upon the size of your business and the funds you have available, there can be a lot of stress associated with moving. Office Moving Basics: If you are on a limited budget, knowing how moving companies arrive at their fees can reduce your stress and even help you save money. For example, if you have the flexibility, try to schedule your move for an off-peak period that is less expensive. Or look for free packing boxes so you will not have to buy or rent them from a moving company. Whether you choose to rent a moving truck or decide to hire a commercial moving company, below are six ways to make the process as seamless and stress-free as possible. 1. Prepare, Plan, and Delegate Write down a plan to outline everything you must do to get to your new office location. Include notifying staff and clients, packing up everything you need, and obtaining insurance. Do not underestimate how long the process will take. Smaller offices will take less time to pack and prepare than larger offices. Start packing the office items you will not need until you are in the new office space. Decide who will be responsible for different steps of the moving process. For example, assign or delegate a move coordinator to communicate with and keep employees informed. Be sure the person you choose has stellar organizational and communication skills and give them the authority to make and manage decisions. Small offices with only a few employees will require a very coordinated effort to work together. 2. Layout a Timeline Keep in mind that while you plan to move, there will still be work that needs to get done. When creating a plan, establish a reasonable timeline so that your business does not suffer during the moving phase. The first step to put on your timeline is the moving date. Do not forget to include time for cleaning up and decluttering your office before packing. There is no need to bring stuff you will not need to a new place. Your lease termination date will play a significant role in choosing a moving day. 3. Know Your Budget Relocating to a new office location will cost money. Determine how much you can afford to outsource and where you can reduce costs. Will you hire a professional mover or rent a truck? Do you plan on upgrading office furniture and equipment? It is highly recommended that you include moving insurance in your budget if anything gets damaged or lost during the move. 4. Plan Out the New Office Space Collect any available information, such as floor layouts and blueprints, for the new space. Know where the electrical outlets are located and how much storage space you have. Does the new office have large open spaces that will require temporary walls or cubicles? If yes, It's possible that you will need to hire electricians, painters, carpenters or you can try One Point Partitions if your office will require some more specific work, like toilet divisions so that your new office will accommodate your current needs. Do not forget to include these costs in your budget. 5. Solicit Bids If you plan on hiring a professional mover, get several bids, and choose the company that best suits your needs and budget. Specialty items such as high-value products and complicated equipment like medical equipment should be handled by professionals with experience. 6. Notify Service Providers and Clients Let your clients or customers know well in advance when you plan to move. Even if you do your best to avoid delays in communications and services, there is a good chance there will be a slight delay during the actual move. Set up a contingency plan for how clients can reach you during your move. A suggestion is to leave a few employees in the office to attend to customer inquiries. Follow the steps above to achieve a successful office move with minimal to no downtime. The better you plan, the more likely your staff will be able to get back to work in the new location quickly. Read Also: The Ultimate Moving Checklist – Things you Need to do When Moving Finding The Right Moving Company Plan Moving Houses Ahead: 7 Essential Tips 10 Things to Do Before You Move Out of State Factors To Consider While Preparing For A Move

Work from wherever you want

Surely we would all be aware by now what it’s like to be in the working environment. You’re often stuck in one place, doing the same old repetitive things for who knows how long and then being expected to do things in the way the boss tells them to. You need to work from anywhere. Moreover, in all this, they are to maintain a good level of motivation so that their mood and levels of fatigue do not take a toll on their workload. As we know, it's just not possible to keep a high level of motivation in a confined environment, you are bound to let it get to you no matter what. Compromising on the quality of work, in turn, could have your boss reprimanding you or in some extreme cases even fire you. So what do you do? How do you even get out of a situation like this? We may have a solution to your issue should you choose to go with it. Northbridge Secure is a company which looks to take people out of the office environment and places them in a more comfortable setting. A setting which they are familiar with and where they will be able to perform better, a setting of their own choice. Whether it's their bed, a park or just sitting around in their living room, the company looks to bring the entire work environment into one centralized location where you can access them from just about anywhere. Essential Things You Need To Take Care Of While You Work From Anywhere What is NetConnect? What net connect is, is a software system launched by Northbridge Secure. It’s a system which allows the user to get out of an uncomfortable environment and move into a more comfortable setting in order for them to increase productivity. They have access to all their files and everything else they will need, just like as they were in their office environment, yet with the comfort of being wherever they want. This way the worker is in touch with their other coworkers and can get whatever work which they want to be done with whatever help they need through the online support of their colleagues as well. It’s basically your entire office on your device, be it a computer or cell phone. This makes it great for people who are constantly on the move. Is it secure? Northbridge Secure claims that they have indeed met whatever safety considerations a usual business is concerned about. It’s common for hackers and other rogue agents to try and infiltrate such a system and take advantage of key data. This could cost your company a lot of money if sensitive information gets into the wrong hands, not to mentioned ceasing to be a company as a whole. Just an overall nasty situation if you think about it, one which you don’t want to get caught up in. For this reason, the company has taken the best measure to ensure security when it comes to their NetConnect software. They have taken note of the potential dangers to the company of working from a software and on personal devices and tried to ensure that there is no access route for hackers to potentially get in and steal data. Long story short, yes, it is secure. You can use it anywhere We talked about this briefly earlier. So on one of those days when you’re out with your friends or family and you remembered that there is a little bit of work to be submitted and you can’t be late. You don’t even have your computer nearby and you start to panic. Well, fear not. NetConnect works on any device you choose, whether it's a cell phone, laptop or tablet. Now you can work anywhere and at any time. You can catch up on work which you are late on either while you’re sitting in the park, or at a bar with your friends. You really don’t need to worry about anything other than getting it across in time and the quality of work. That’s somethings Northbridge Secure cannot help you with. Hopefully, something like this can help you and your work life out just a little bit. It certainly makes things much more efficient for people who don't work well in an office environment and are working part-time in different places. We hope that Northbridge Secure business can be useful, yet feel free to scout the market for whatever suits your needs best. Final Take Away Hence, these are some of the core factors that you have to take care of while you want to improve your work from anywhere. Try to fetch the best results while you want to improve your Read Also: 5 Informal Team Building Activities To Break The Ice Among Co-Workers What No One Tells You About Working Remotely

Top DevOps Metrics in Development Companies

DevOps, though exclusively focused on the improvement of software development businesses’ operations, are often misunderstood, especially at the initial stage of their adoption. This concept means different things in different companies, primarily due to the distinctions in focus and various tools’ choices for solving specific business needs. But measuring the DevOps success is imperative for any business, as the large-scale transformation they require is usually expensive and long-term. So, how can you determine whether the project succeeded or not? To keep the progress under control, every company has its own comprehensive list of DevOps metrics to measure the success of its operations. Here we offer a detailed guide on choosing your metrics and making sense of them. Features of Actionable DevOps Metrics Overall, there are dozens of metrics experts recommend, but your company may need a specific set thereof. How to choose the ones that fit your organization the best? We advise focusing on the following characteristics and checking these points before including the metric in your checklist. i. Relevance When you put DevOps tools in use, you probably pursue a specific business goal or close a performance gap. Thus, your DevOps approach may differ from the one in another company, and your metrics for measuring success should also match the initially set goals. If your problem was a large number of errors, then the defect escape rate will be the number one metric of interest. If you struggled with deployment delays, then the deployment frequency is a metric to focus on, and so on. ii. Measurability There’s no sense in relying on abstract, subjective evaluations when assessing the impact of DevOps introduction in your company. Such measurements will be vague, giving no concrete data for analysis and further action. So, always choose parameters that have standardized values and can be re-measured over time. iii. Traceability When you want to measure something, you need to have a clear idea of what issue or parameter that metric points to. Otherwise, you won’t draw valuable conclusions even with accurate data in your hands. iv. Actionability What does the metric show to you? What problems can it highlight, and what improvements can it suggest? Every metric should be valuable for evidence-based decisions and strategic actions. v. Reliability The metric should be objective and out of the control of any team member. Otherwise, people in your team can easily manipulate the data or present their subjective views that distort or conceal the general perception of the situation. What Metrics Won’t Do? With the features of good metrics in mind, you should also learn a bit more about poor metric choices. This information can prevent DevOps beginners from relying on wrong or inaccurate data, which may lead to wrong, counter-productive decisions. So, bad DevOps metrics are usually: a. Beyond the DevOps mindset Make sure that you adopt the DevOps culture in its entirety to avoid non-DevOps metrics in performance measurement. Your values change, and the team’s performance is measured in entirely different terms. Thus, for instance, measuring compliance won’t help as it is not suitable for the DevOps development environment. b. Focused on competition inside the team Collaboration and competition often contradict each other. Thus, a company with a competitive culture rewarding winners and punishing losers will hardly succeed in the DevOps transition. If you understand this, don’t introduce metrics fostering competition in the team or between teams; it will kill all DevOps progress. c. Individually rewarding Appreciation of individual input is a metric irrelevant to DevOps, as the latter focuses on the communal outcome. So, even if a single person does the lion’s share of work in the team, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they are the best. The team’s added value to the end-user experience becomes the top priority when you want to integrate the DevOps approach. The Top 6 Metrics to Focus On #1 Lead Time Lead time is the key metric in most speed-focused businesses. It measures the amount of time your team needs to write and deploy the code. This metric is highly informative for future planning, showing how much time a coder will need to complete a specific task. #2 Frequency of Deployment Every development company focuses on more frequent code deployments, which is typically achieved by reducing the deployment size. The latter simplifies the testing and release operations. However, this metric is more complex than one might think. To get to the core of your deployment statistics, you need to understand the number of production and non-production deployments, factor in the number of deployments to QA checks before the final release. Once these metrics are collected and analyzed in a union, you will understand how this metric affects your defect escape rates. #3 Defect Escape Rate The QA check at the pre-production stage is an excellent filter for ensuring that defective code doesn’t get to production. However, companies focused on fast delivery often skip the QA stage and launch poorly working code without proper testing. The defect escape rate metric will give you an idea of how many defective deployments are there; it is calculated by dividing the total number of deployments by the number of defective ones identified at the QA stage. #4 Error Rates Unfortunately, errors are unavoidable in the software development world. Still, you can derive tons of valuable data from analyzing your errors. Identify their types, the stage at which they occur most frequently, and look for spikes in error rates. These metrics will help you spot systemic problems and oust them to achieve sizable performance improvements. #5 Mean time to detection (MTTD) Errors can go unnoticed for a certain period, and the longer that period is, the greater risks they pose. Thus, it would be best to keep the MTTD metric under tight control to minimize the time for error detection and correction. Otherwise, your system may suffer downtime or expose its critical vulnerabilities, which is very risky. Always Measure Your Progress As you can see, DevOps can turn into a concrete and measurable issue if you use proper metrics for its assessment. Invest time and effort into picking the right metrics for your business, even if you decide to get a devops automation service. In this way, you will always be in complete control of your operations, introducing adjustments and corrections where necessary. Read Also: Lucrative Business Ideas to start Near Water Bodies 5 Factors To Consider When Hiring A Branding Expert For Your Business What Really Matters When Choosing a Domain Name for Your Business How You Can Grow Your Small Business By Taking Help From Crypto

4 Reasons Your Home Business Needs A Virtual Receptionist